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HOW AMERICAN CITIZENS 
GOVERN THEMSELVES 


BY CHARLES A^' BEARD 
DIRECTOR OF THE BUREAU 
OF MUNICIPAL RESEARCH 
AND TRAINING SCHOOL 
FOR PUBLIC SERVICE, 
NEW YORK CITY 


Published for the 
Educational Bureau 
National War Work Council of 
Young Men's Christian Associations, 
by 

Association Press, 

347 Madison Avenue, New York 
1919 
















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, 632.1 


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How American Citizens Govern Themselves 

On 

^ The Spirit of American Government 

^ For more than two hundred years a great political ideal 
has been taking form and spreading throughout the earth: 

^ governments must derive their powers from the consent of 

Hr the governed. In renouncing allegiance to the British King 
on July 4, 1776, the founders of the American nation wrote 
their enduring article of faith in the Declaration of Inde¬ 
pendence : 

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men 
are created equal, that they are endowed by their Cre¬ 
ator with certain unalienable rights, that among these 
are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That to 
secure these rights, governments are instituted among 
men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the 
governed; that whenever any form of government be¬ 
comes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the 
people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute a new 
government, laying its foundation on such principles 
and organizing its powers in such form as to them shall 
seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.” 

r 

The Right and Duty (jp Citizens to Take Part In the 
Government ! 

In carrying the spirit of the Declaration of Independence 
into practice, the American people have applied the follow¬ 
ing principles: 

All political power is derived from the people. 

All public officers who make laws or carry them into 
execution must be chosen directly or indirectly by 
the people. 


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The people have the right to alter the forms of govern¬ 
ment and to determine the nature and kinds of work 
undertaken by it. 

In using the term “people,” however, we must remember 
that strictly speaking all “the people” do not share equally 
in the choice of the officers who compose the government. 
Indeed the phrase “government by the people” was used 
originally by way of contrast with “government by an 
hereditary monarch and hereditary nobility.” In the be¬ 
ginning of our history the proportion of people who were 
permitted to share in the government through the right to 
vote was much smaller than it is now. In most of the 
thirteen states which composed the Union after the winning 
of American independence, the right to vote was limited to 
those who owned property of a certain value or paid taxes 
of a certain amount. Moreover, women (except in New 
Jersey for a short time) could not vote; neither could aliens. 
Of course, people below the specified age limit, twenty-one 
years, were likewise excluded from a direct share in the 
government. 

Since the early years of the republic, the right to vote 
has been steadily extended to an ever larger proportion of 
the people. Before 1850 the old practice of excluding non¬ 
taxpayers and those without a certain amount of property 
was abandoned. After the Civil War it was provided by 
national law that no one should be deprived of the right to 
vote on account of race, color, or previous condition of 
servitude—in other words, that the right to vote should not 
be denied to the negroes just released from slavery. Many 
years later, some states, notably Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, 
and Idaho, extended the suffrage to women, and many of 
the larger states did so a little later. In the following 15 
states women now have the vote on the same terms as men: 
Washington, Oregon, California, Nevada, Montana, Idaho, 
Utah, Arizona, Wyoming, Colorado, Kansas, Michigan, 
Oklahoma, South Dakota, New York. They have a lim- 


ited school, tax, or bond sut¥rage in North Dakota, Ne¬ 
braska, Minnesota, Iowa, and a few other states. They 
have presidential suffrage in the state of Illinois. In the 
autumn of 1918 President Wilson went before Congress 
and asked for an amendment to the federal constitution giv¬ 
ing women the vote everywhere in the American Union. 

As things stand now, the right to vote varies from state to ^ 
state. In some states all adult citizens, that is, all men and 
women over twenty-one years of age share in the govern¬ 
ment through the right to elect officers and to hold office if 
elected. In other states, all adult male citizens can vote and 
hold office. In other states, voters must have certain educa¬ 
tional qualifications such as that of being able to read, in the 
English language, a passage from the laws or constitution 
of the state. In a few states aliens who have declared their 
intention of becoming American citizens are allowed to vote 
but in most states that right is confined entirely to citizens. 

The right to hold office usually goes with the right to vote, 
and as a general principle all those who can vote may also 
hold any public office within the gift of the people. In the 
early days of our history it was quite common to impose 
higher property qualifications on public officers than on 
voters, but such discriminations are now swept away. The 
only discrimination now remaining is that of age. The 
federal constitution, for example, provides that representa¬ 
tives must be twenty-five years of age, senators, thirty, and 
the president, thirty-five. State constitutions frequently 
require that certain officers must be older than twenty-one, 
the limit fixed for voters. 

The Form of American Government 

In the United States the powers of government are di¬ 
vided between the states which compose the Union and the 
federal government which has its seat at Washington. In 
other words, the American form of government is federal. 
The United States, as the name implies, is a Union of forty- 


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eight states, each of which has its own separate government. 
Accordingly there is a government of the Union—that is, 
the government at Washington—and a government for each 
of the states. In addition, each state is divided into counties 
(Louisiana, parishes), towns, villages, cities, and other local 
divisions, each of which has a government of its own. 

The Powers of the Federal Government 

The following great powers and duties are conferred upon 
the federal government: 

Control over foreign relations, such as making treaties 
with other countries; regulating foreign commerce; 
sending ambassadors^ consuls, and ministers to other 
nations; waging war, and making peace. 

Taxation—laying and collecting taxes, duties, imposts, 
excises, etc. 

Raising and supporting the Army and Navy. 
Regulating interstate commerce. 

Maintaining post offices. 

Naturalizing aliens. 

Governing territories and dependencies of the United 
States. 

Doing all things necessary and proper to carry into 
effect the powers conferred upon the government. 

Form of the Federal Government 

The work of the federal government is entrusted to three 
great branches: 

1. The executive department, composed of the president 
and vice-president, ten members of the cabinet (state, 
war, navy, treasury, post office, attorney-general, com¬ 
merce, agriculture, interior, labor) ; members of 
boards and commissions, such as the interstate com- 


6 


merce commissions; ambassadors and consuls repre¬ 
senting the United States abroad, and the great army 
of employees of the federal government. Of this 
branch of the government, the president and vice- 
president alone are elected (indirectly) by popular 
vote. The voters in each state choose a number of 
electors equal to the number of its senators and mem¬ 
bers of the house of representatives, and these elec¬ 
tors in turn choose the president. Nowadays, the 
electors always vote for the nominees of their party, 
so that practically, the people vote directly for presi¬ 
dential candidates. 

2. The legislative branch, composed of two senators from 
each state and one or more representatives (the num¬ 
ber being determined by the population of the state) 
elected by popular vote. 

3. The judicial department, composed of the supreme 
court of nine judges, nine circuit courts of appeal, and 
a large number of district courts. The judges of all 
federal courts are appointed by the president and the 
senate and hold office during good behavior. 

Powers of State Governments 

All powers not conferred upon the federal government 
or denied to the states by the federal constitution are re¬ 
served to the states. Chief among the powers enjoyed by 
the states are those of laying taxes, enacting the laws gov¬ 
erning the ownership, sale, transfer, and inheritance of 
property, regulating industries, mines, factories, railways 
(within the state), defining acts which are to be punished 
as crimes, determining the form and work of city and 
county governments, maintaining institutions of public wel¬ 
fare, such as hospitals, asylums, schools, etc., encouraging 
agriculture, industry, and science, care and management of 
state forests, lands, and water power, and control of public 


7 


health and safety. Many American citizens do not suffici¬ 
ently realize that most of the law-making which directly 
affects the every-day life of the people is in the hands of the 
state legislatures, and that the powers of these bodies are 
in some respects more important than those of Congress. 

The Form of the State Government 

The government of each state is modeled somewhat on 
that of the United States, and includes the following de¬ 
partments : 

1. Executive, composed of the governor and usually sev¬ 
eral other officers elected by popular vote, and in 
addition a large number of administrative officers ap¬ 
pointed in various ways—frequently by the governor 
with the consent of the senate. 

2. The legislative branch, composed of the two houses, 
both elected by popular vote. 

3. A judicial department, the judges of which are now 
commonly elected by popular vote. 

Each state, except Louisiana, is divided into counties. 
For nearly every county there is an elective board and sev¬ 
eral elective officers who carry on the work of government. 
Frequently the county is divided into towns or townships 
in which officers also elected by the voters carry on the work 
of the local government. 

When a large number of people come to live together in 
one community, it is the practice to set off that community 
by itself, call it a city, and give it a government of its own. 
City governments naturally vary greatly from one part of 
the country to another. In some cities the government is 
vested in a mayor and a council; in other cities, it is vested 
in a commission or board of five men. They are all alike, 
however, in this fundamental principle, namely, that the 
high authorities are elected by popular vote. 


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Officers For Whom the Voter May Vote 

•As a result of the American plan of government every 
voter is entitled to vote for a large number of officers among 
whom the following should be mentioned: 

1. President and vice-president of the United States (in¬ 
directly). 

2. United States Senators. 

3. Member of the House of Representatives of the 
United States. 

4. Governor of the state (and usually other state officers, 
such as the treasurer, secretary of state, etc.} 

5. Member (or in a few cases, members) of each house 
of the state legislature. 

6. Judges of state and local courts (usually). 

7. Mayor of the city and one or more members of the 
city council or commission and perhaps other city 
officials. 

8. Certain county officers, such as the sheriff, recorder, 
treasurer, etc. 

9. In country districts, town, township, and village 
officers. 

The Voter Works Through Parties 

Where there are many heads there are usually many 
minds. In olden times a king of England had a law passe^ 
jentitled “An act for abolishing diversity of opinion,’* but he 
r could not enforce it. Where the people control the govern¬ 
ment there naturally arise differences of opinion as to the 
exact form of the government or as to the nature of the 
• • work which the government should do. Voters who think 
alike on public questions, like birds of a feather, tend to flock 
together. Thus political parties rise in democratic countries 


9 



like the United States. Parties change from time to time. 
Old parties disappear and new parties take their places; but 
parties are always with us, and citizens who desire to in¬ 
fluence the work of the government usually seek to do so by 
working with a political party. It is the party that (1) 
nominates candidates for public offices, from which candi¬ 
dates the voter must choose on election day; (2) draws up 
platforms or statements of principles in which its members 
believe; (3) carries on campaigns to influence voters to vote 
for certain candidates; and (4) keeps up an organization 
of party workers beginning with the ward, election district, 
or precinct in which the voter lives and ending with the 
national committee which manages presidential election 
campaigns. 

The Right of Citizens to Take Part in Law Making 

In the beginning of our history the right to citizens to 
share in the government was limited (except in town meet¬ 
ings and on a few occasions) to (1) the choice of public 
officers, to represent them and act in their name and (2) 
the holding of public offices. Even the first state constitu¬ 
tions as a rule were not submitted to the voters for their 
approval. In fact, only three of the eighteenth-century state 
constitutions were laid before the voters for ratification or 
rejection. Slowly, however, the idea came to be accepted 
that voters, in a final analysis, had the right to pass upon 
their own fundamental laws. The New York constitution 
of 1821 was referred to the voters and it further provided 
that amendments should likewise be submitted to the voters 
after having received legislative approval. About fifty or 
sixty years ago, the doctrine was fairly fixed that state con¬ 
stitutions could be established only with the approval of the 
voters at the polls, and parts of the constitutions since 1850 
have been approved by popular vote. It was not such a long * 
step, therefore, from these and similar practices, to the 
adoption of a complete system for permitting the voters to 


10 


participate in the making of ordinary laws as well as con¬ 
stitutions, in other words, to the adoption of the initiative 
and referendum, whereby the voters may initiate any meas¬ 
ure or require the referendum on any legislative act. The 
initiative is a device whereby any person or group of persons 
may draft a statute or constitutional amendment and on 
securing the signatures of a small percentage of the voters 
may compel the state officials, with or without the interven¬ 
tion of the legislature, to submit the same to popular vote; 
and if the required popular approval is secured, the pro¬ 
posal becomes a law. The referendum is a plan whereby 
a small percentage of the voters may demand that any 
statute passed by the legislature (with the exception of cer¬ 
tain laws) must be submitted to the electorate and approved 
by a stipulated majority before going into effect. 

No less than seventeen states, including South Dakota, 
Oregon, Idaho, Massachusetts, Missouri, Montana, Utah, 
Maine, Oklahoma, Nevada, Arkansas, Colorado, California, 
Washington, Nebraska, Ohio, and Arizona, have established 
the initiative and referendum in one form or another. Dur¬ 
ing the past few years the spread of the idea has not been 
so rapid as in the decade before 1912. 

The Duties of Citizens 

The obligations imposed upon citizens who enjoy the 
privileges of American democracy are twofold: legal and 
moral. The former are too various to be enumerated here. 
They range from the duty of rendering military service 
when called upon to that of driving upon the right side of 
the road. Such obligations are defined by the law and are 
enforced by public authorities. They, of course, vary from 
time to time as new laws are made or old laws are repealed. 

The moral obligations are less easily defined, though many 
of them are quite clear in principle. First among these is 
the duty of voting when officers are to be elected or meas¬ 
ures are submitted for a referendum. The right to vote, 


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as we have seen, is a legal right, and in some countries those 
who refuse to exercise it are punishable by law. In this 
country, however, the exercise of the privilege (except in 
Massachusetts) is only a moral obligation resting upon those 
who have the legal right, and they may refuse to vote with¬ 
out incurring any penalties. Those who do refuse are shirk¬ 
ing a responsibility and, to that extent, failing to aid in mak¬ 
ing the government of the people the best possible govern¬ 
ment. 

A second moral obligation, which is closely related to the 
first, is the duty of being informed about public questions 
that are ultimately to be decided by the casting of ballots. 
The citizen who fails to inform himself about the political 
issues before the people and who merely votes as he is told 
by some other person is likely to be as dangerous to good 
government, if not more dangerous, than the citizen who 
refuses to vote at all. 

It is for this reason that education is such a vital element 
in the successful working of the democratic form of govern¬ 
ment. A man is not doing his duty as a citizen unless to the 
full extent of his ability he fits himself, and his children, 
for the intelligent exercise of the great power and responsi¬ 
bility which he shares as a voting citizen of this Republic. 

In seeking to become informed, the voter will become 
broader in his views and more inclined to respect the opin¬ 
ions of those from whom he differs. He will learn, with 
the father of the American Constitution, James Madison, 
that mankind has a strong propensity “to fall into mutual 
animosities”; that “landed interest, a manufacturing in¬ 
terest, a mercantile interest, a moneyed interest, with many 
lesser interests grow up of necessity in civilized nations,” 
and that “the regulation of these various and interfering 
.interests forms the principal task of modern legislation, and 
involves the spirit of party and faction in the necessary and 
ordinary operations of government.” It is by seeking to 
comprehend the claims and interests of the various parties 
and factions that the voter obtains the breadth of view and 


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depth of understanding that fit him for wise decisions in 
matters of public policy. 

This leads inevitably to the assumption of a third moral 
obligation, that of toleration and respect for the opinions 
of others. This is one of the most difficult but one of the 
most necessary virtues for the success of democratic govern¬ 
ment. Where freedom reigns, there will always be differ¬ 
ences of opinion, and government by the people, which 
means government by public opinion, inevitably implies that 
differences of opinion shall be fairly heard, openly discussed, 
honestly adjusted. Anything short of this is incompatible 
with democracy and fatal to the progress of enlightened 
humanity. As President Wilson has so finely said: “The 
whole purpose of democracy is that we may hold counsel 
with one another, so as not to depend upon the understand¬ 
ing of one man, but to depend upon the counsel of all. For 
only as men are brought into counsel and state their own 
needs and interests, can the general interests of a great 
people be compounded info a policy That wfil fie suff^ to 
all.” Without the toleration involved in common counsel 
there can be no genuine information: without information 
the obligations of citizenship cannot be faithfully fulfilled. 

Equally important with the virtue of toleration and re¬ 
spect for the opinions of others is the capacity for ac¬ 
quiescing in the decisions of duly constituted majorities on 
issues and candidacies submitted to the voters at the polls. 
The American scheme of government provides for periodi¬ 
cal elections at which the voters may change their 
representatives and the policies of the government. It also 
provides methods for amending charters and constitutions 
by orderly process. It has been one of the striking features 
of American politics that, except for the single election of 
1860, the defeated parties have accepted the results of elec¬ 
tions and set to work to retrieve their losses at coming 
elections. It is in this feature that American politics is 
especially distinguished from politics in some other countries 
where parties failing to win elections resort to arms. 


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Obviously there can be no orderly and progressive 
political life where the people do not have that self-control 
which enables them to abide by the rules of the game. One 
of the first requirements of what is called “democracy” is 
"that the people who live under this form of government 
shall be “good losers.” If a man’s party or principles are 
defeated at an election, he may try again as often as he 
likes; but he must wait until the next inning, and must not 
start a “rough house” merely because his particular views 
do not, for the moment, prevail. “Government by the 
people” means, in practice, government by majorities—sub¬ 
ject to such limitations upon hasty majority action as the 
Constitution imposes. Consequently, where minorities will 
not accept the decision of majorities with patience and good 
humor, and obey the laws voted by the majority, there can 
be no such thing as government by the people at all. 

Reading References 

Macy, J., and Gannaway, J. W. “Comparative Free Gov¬ 
ernment.” Macmillan. 

Dtinn, A. W. “The Community and the Citizen.” Heath. 
Frank, Alissa. “Use your Government.” Dutton. 
Turkington, G. A. “My Country.” Ginn. 

Beard, C. A. “American Citizenship.” Macmillan. 




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